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Lawrence will be replaced as Pelosi’s top aide by Nadeam Elshami, currently the communications director and senior adviser. Elshami worked for Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) before moving to Pelosi’s office in 2007.

Other senior Pelosi staffers, including George Kundanis, Diane Dewhurst and Drew Hammill, will move up or receive expanded responsibilities inside her office.

The 63-year-old Lawrence came to the House in the mid-1970s as an idealistic young staffer who became politically active protesting the Vietnam War. He ends his career after having helped enact laws on a number of key issues, many of them rallying points for the progressive movement during the past four decades — water policy, energy, the environment, education reform, child welfare, workers’ rights, the federal budget, the treatment of the disabled and minorities.

Lawrence also served as the chief of staff for the first female House speaker in U.S. history, one whose power was unmatched by any man who wielded that gavel in decades.

“I would certainly say overall that the high point was getting to be the chief of staff to the speaker of the House,” Lawrence told POLITICO during an interview. “In this position, you just get a perspective on much more of what it takes to both run the institution and to accomplish really big goals ... I am very grateful to [Pelosi] for giving me that chance. I am grateful to our staff and everybody who worked together to get this stuff done.”

Pelosi and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), Lawrence’s longtime boss, offered strong praise for the top Democratic House staffer.

“On behalf of my colleagues, I want to thank John Lawrence for his 38 years of service to the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Few staff members have ever had the impact that John has had on so many laws that have been enacted in his years in my office as Speaker and as Democratic Leader, and with Chairman George Miller.”

“He was just a remarkable person to work with,” Miller said of Lawrence. “He has such a dedication to public policy. We worked on a lot of tough, knotty issues that took a long time to get through. Our slogan was ‘If you want to get into a fight, bring your lunch.’”

“I give John great credit for a lot of skill in figuring out the four or five different ways we could skin a cat,” Miller added, referring to Lawrence’s ability to find legislative solutions to difficult problems. “I think that was our success. And I say, ‘our’ because we were a team in getting that done.”